Lorraine, 18, Yorkshire and Humber

9 October 2017

“I’ve been under CAMHS [Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services] since I was six
years old. I’m not quite sure why, all I know is that I was diagnosed with Epilepsy at
six and at around the same time I was also diagnosed with ADHD [Attention Deficit
Hyperactivity Disorder] symptoms, but the doctors didn’t actually give me an official
diagnosis, they didn’t know what it was.

I’ve had loads of different types of therapy, I’ve had everything you can think of which
were to do with mental health.

I’ve been in care since I was four years old, so obviously like, I don’t remember much.
Lately I’ve been having flashbacks but I don’t know if it’s false memory or not. So I’m
not going by it.

Basically I got brought into care because my dad abusing me and my mum didn’t speak
up for me, she didn’t phone social services. But luckily someone on my estate did. It got
to a point where someone did phone them because they were concerned.
Since I’ve lived with my foster carer, I call her mum because she’s been the only mum
I’ve ever known, and I still live with her now.

With school it hasn’t altered anything, but it has caused a bit of difficulty because
I’ve always had anger issues but the school always thought I had educational
difficulties but I didn’t. They got that mixed up with the fact I had mental health
issues.

So basically they were saying that I needed support and someone to sit next to me in
school and do me work for me when I didn’t. So that kind of annoyed me because I had
to put up with that for three years.

I couldn’t do owt about it, I tried, I tried saying to my mum you need to tell ‘um I don’t
need this help, I only need support for me emotions but no-one were listening.
Sometimes I can control it, sometimes it will escalate, other times it will just shoot
straight up and I can’t control it.

With my anger issues it’s always been home based, whenever I have anger outbursts
it’s always been at home and I’m trying to figure out why it is. I know I can’t control it
sometimes, so I don’t get why it doesn’t happen in public, at college or at school. I don’t
get why it always happens at home.

I’m not sure, I’m trying figure out why I suffer from them still. 12 years on and I am still
trying to figure it out.

My mum knows that mental health issues isn’t my fault, she knows that. She knows that
when it’s got beyond my control I can’t help that. So she’s supportive like when going to
my doctors she’ll come with me, she’ll give me that support.

I have seen some people treat people with mental health issues in horrible ways and
call them horrible things. But then I have seen other people also who understand. So
I think it all depends.

I didn’t talk about going to CAMHS, I didn’t talk about it that much because I didn’t think
it were relevant. Because you are doing the research, I’m gonna tell you the truth. Well
it’s been awful.

When I was younger, obviously I remember what therapy I had, but I don’t remember
how bad or how good it was, so I can’t say much about that.

But when I were 15, I went through a very bad phase when actually I tried to commit
suicide and my mum tried to take me into CAMHS and I was put on a waiting list.
Instead they ended up transferred me to a hospital, but I didn’t need to be in a hospital,
I needed to see someone at CAMHS. But then I was waiting for two more years after that
until I was put back into CAMHS.

But now recently I’ve left child services because I’m 18 and I had an appointment for
adult services in November now they’ve sent me letter saying they’ve changed it to
January.

It’s been moved to January and to be honest I’ve been struggling and I was really
looking forward to this appointment in November and to find out it’s moved to January.
So now when it comes to December they’ll probably move it again.

There have been good bits, but the last four years it’s just gone downhill. I have been to
the doctors once since I’ve left child services but they really didn’t do much, all they did
was give me some contact numbers, they didn’t offer me any proper support.

The thing is though, I’m new to adult services. I just can’t nip down to clinic which
is where my CAMHS is based, I can’t just go down there and say I need to speak to
somebody because I’m not part of their services anymore.

The system, CAMHS, I just think that they need to make sure that they don’t just book
appointments like every 18 months because at the end of day, during that 18 months
owt could happen. Like with me I struggle quite a lot, it’d be easier to ring someone
up and say right I need to talk to you like something’s happened and get reassurance.
Instead of having to wait and it just builds up and all of a sudden it bursts.

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